Snippets

My aunt and two little cousins came to visit Tabitha on Saturday - they had been unable to make her party, so dropped in to wish her a happy birthday.  Tabitha is much smaller than my young cousin, who is years older than her, however she still tried to boss her and climb into her lap in the little car (which sadly has to go back to the toy library.  Tabitha will miss it a lot!).  Can you sense the alarm in poor cousin G's little face?  She is afraid she will be squashed by 9kg of baby!

The cousins brought gifts for Tabitha - including a cute pink corduroy cat - and some beautiful yellow tulips for me.  They are sitting, in their pot, on my windowsil, adding cheer to the kitchen:

Look at all of Tabitha's lovely birthday cards!  She is such a lucky girl, and loves her cards - in fact, I am having to work to stop her climbing up the bookshelf to pluck down some cards to play with.

When Tabitha was born, we recieved more cards than you can imagine - well over 100.  I bundled them up with some ribbon, and they sit on her shelves.  I hope that one day she will enjoy looking at them.  I have done the same with her Christening cards, her first Christmas cards, and will also with her birthday cards.  I can't bear to throw them out - people have written such nice, kind things.

Here are her birthday cards, and behind them in a frame, a gorgeous postcard of a young ballerina sent from Paris from her honorary great-aunt Penelope (who I used to call Pelepone, and the name has stuck):

For her birthday, Tabitha recieved lots of beautiful, special gifts, including some of her very own jewellery - a pearl bracelet from The Daddy and I, a silver 'Little Lamb' fawn bangle from my parents, and a divine little ladybird charm for her Pandora bracelet, given to her by her Godmother Sophie.  She also received beautiful soft toys, fun games and puzzles, lovely books, pretty dresses and shoes and even a song, written - music and lyrics - and recorded for her by her talented 14 year old Godfather Noah!

Here are some of her new toys - at the back, a gorgeous wooden cart with the nicest little handmade animal 'bowling pins' and a wooden bowling ball, as well as several handmade felt and wooden farm animals for playing with:

She received two pairs of shoes for her birthday - some stunning metallic pink ballet shoes (in the box) and some super-cute Marc Jacobs 'mousie' shoes, back right, with pale pink leather 'ears' and little spiky whiskers.  With over ten pairs of shoes, Tabby has more nice pairs than her mummy!

My favorite shoe brand for baby shoes is Bobux.  They are designed in New Zealand, and the quality is superb.

You are not supposed to put MCNs (modern cloth nappies) such as our Itti Bitti nappies in the dryer - the heat degrades the waterproof fabric and the elastic.  You are allowed to dry them on 'low heat' however I generally line-dry them to save power.  But since our cats destroyed our indoor clothes airer (naughty cats!) I put her nappies into the dryer (on low).  WOW!  They are so, so soft!  I don't know if I can go back to line drying...  I will, I know I will, but I will be sure to give them a turn in the dryer every now and again to soften them up.

In Tabitha's nursery, she has a large wall unit of shelves - the top shelves house books, the middle shelves house delicate things (such as porcelain money box, jewellery, small toys, photos and the like), and the bottom shelves house basket storage, and also toys she enjoys playing with.  Often, I hear her go into her bedroom on her own, and start playing her little xylophones!  I snuck in a took a couple of photos - here she is enjoying making some music:

In feel-good news, I received a package in the mail today.  A woman who I had donated breastmilk to had posted back my containers, and had so generously included brilliant Peter Rabbit 'buggy book' and a kind card.  What a lovely surprise!  But - why oh why does the postman always press the buzzer (for about a minute!) when Tabitha is asleep?!

Well, it seems that Tabitha has officially transitioned to one nap per day.  She hasn't yet decided exactly what time she would like to sleep - she has been going down between 10:30am and 3pm, depending on the day - but overall, we are trending towards a nap from roughly 12pm - 1:30pm or 2pm.

She has also really stepped up a level with her monkey climbing skills - not only can she now climb up onto the sofa, bookshelf and our bed (dragging something like a tissue box or a boot to stand on, if required), she can now climb up her high chair and onto the dining table!  Goodness!  Dangerous and alarming.  I cannot take my eyes off her anymore!  Apparently at the same age, my mother caught me half way up a ladder against the side of the house.  I cannot imagine what a fright that must have given her.

Today is a lovely day.  Sun is shining, house is clean, baby is giggly.  I have been laying on the sofa reflecting on how much I adore being a full time mother - I can honestly say that I am completely fulfilled by our days together.  At so many moments through the day, I find myself getting almost teary with the complete love and adoration I feel for my sweet, funny girl.  The overwhelming 'motherly love' is almost like a drug, rushing through my entire body.  I know that things will get harder, no doubt, when more children come along, but being a mother is simply the most wonderful thing I could have imagined.  Not a day passes when I don't feel this way, even when I am tired.  I cannot tell you how lucky I feel.

Milestones and Eating Update

Since I started this blog, partially, to keep a record of Tabitha's activities (since my handwriting is too dreadful to keep an attractive baby book), I ought to update things.

She has been 'walking' around with a walker/pushing a pram/holding our hands for a couple of months now.  She can do this for great distances, and does not tire easily.  She can also stand on her own for a little while - up to ten or so seconds, sometimes - but at this stage, has expressed no desire to walk on her own.  She will once she's ready!

She loves to point.  She extends her Pointing Finger and bunches up the rest of them, into a proper pointing gesture. It amazes me how they pick these things up.  She then likes to point at all sorts of things which interest her - people, balloons, dogs, pictures on walls.  She generally does this with a frown, and a 'UHHH' noise.  I like this stage - it is fascinating to learn the things which interest her enough to point.

She likes copying things - you can teach her new games or tricks quite easily.  My little sister taught her to wave and 'high five' many months ago, but more recently, she has learnt things such as blowing kisses, and the 'blinking game' which involves blinking back and forth at each other.  It is most amusing, because she tries to watch you the whole time - so her face contorts as she tries to blink with her eyes open.

She was given two toy cars for her birthday - an eco-friendly, ethically made pink race car, and a fancy plastic car which has one of those clever, battery-free motors which propels itself along if you give it a good push.  With both of the cars, she will push them around on the rug, making 'BROOOM BROOOOOOOM' noises.  It seems terribly grown up.

Like most other modern babies of her age, she enjoys taking a mobile phone - or, indeed, anything vaguely mobile-phone-sized, such as a block, remote control or piece of cardboard - and holding it to her ear, yelling 'YAYAYAYAYAYA!' into the phone.  It occurred to me, after watching this, that I must speak very loudly into the phone, since she seems to be under the impression that one must YELL into the phone.  Hmm.  Food for thought.

With regard to eating, Tabitha seems to have turned a corner.  While she has generally been an adventurous eater (as most babies are), she has always had a bird-like appetite, picking and nibbling but rarely making much of a dint in her meals.  This is fine by me - Baby Led Weaning says that food is just for fun, until the child is one, and the ABA and my MCHN have both reassured me that Tabby gets almost all the nutrients she needs from breastmilk.  However, in the past couple of weeks (since she turned one, roughly), she has started to eat slightly more heartily.  For example, yesterday for lunch, she ate:

• A small piece of veggie burger (roughly the size of a nugget)
• Half of a wedge of pear
• Half of a corn thin with cream cheese
• Half a piece of cheddar cheese
• A nibble of toast with green pickles

Her diet remains mostly protein, fat and carbohydrates (this makes sense - she is getting all her vitamins and minerals from breastmilk, so what she probably needs is more calories, protein and iron).  I continue to offer her a variety of fruit and vegetables, but she generally prefers to eat meat, seafood, pasta, breads, cheese, eggs and the like.  She sits at the 90th centile for height and the 30th centile for weight, so, as my MCHN says, "she is a clever little thing and knows not to bother filling up with apples when there is schnitzel on offer!".  I have faith that Tabby's body knows exactly what it needs - and I am grateful that she gets so much goodness from her 'milkies'.

At occasional care (which she goes to for an hour or two on a Friday morning, to practice having some playtime without mumma hovering over her), we are required to send a snack:  a sandwich, and a piece of prepared fruit.  The first time I picked her up, the lovely ladies told me, "she ate all of her sandwich, but she showed great disdain for her fruit!  She tossed it across the room!"  Yes, that sounds like my babe.

Here is Tabitha enjoying some pear:

Tabitha will still not take a bottle of expressed milk - she took one beautifully when she was younger, until around 4 months, so don't believe what they say about needing to introduce one early so they will always take one.  She knows her milkies is just as much about a nice special cuddle with 'mum-mum', inhaling deeply the scent of my skin.  She gets quite cross if anyone tries to give her a bottle!  Regardless, I do keep pumping and expressing milk, keeping some in the freezer.  For one thing, I have to admit, I just love the fact that my body can produce milk!  It seems so awesome that my boring old body can produce so much food for another human being.  I saw a bumper sticker which read, "I make milk.  What's your superpower?" which made me smile.  I might get one.

Anyway, in the meantime, I am thrilled to be able to donate our excess breastmilk.  I use the website Human Milk 4 Human Babies, which operates through facebook.  I have donated to a couple of mothers who have problems with producing enough milk for their babies - both are working like no one's business, trying desperately to increase their milk production, but in the meantime, they prefer for their babies to drink human milk from another mother, instead of cows milk or artificial soy / goat formulas.  I am in awe of these mummas, who are working day and night to build their supply - pumping, taking medications, drinking teas - as well as driving all over Melbourne to pick up donated breastmilk for their babies.  In the early days, I donated a fair bit of milk to other mothers via my midwife.  I am most passionate about human milk donation.  I attended a panel discussion on the ethics of milk donation a few months ago.  Fascinating stuff!  But too complex to go into on this post.

Now that she is a Big Girl of One, she has, a few times, cut out her morning nap.  I have tried to put her down, as usual, at 10 or 11am, and after half an hour, she is still merrily chatting in her cot.  On these days, I have fetched her back out of bed, and she has managed to stay awake until 1pm or so.  So, on these days, she has only had one nap.  I guess she is transitioning to a One Nap Age, however apparently this can be a gradual process, so we are playing it by ear for now.

As a general rule, Tabitha is a 2-4 hourly waker overnight.  She tends to feed at roughly 10:30pm, 2am and 5:30am, then wakes for the day around 7:30 or 8am.  However, on the day she turned one, she slept an eight hour stretch!!  I do not lie.  She slept from 11pm until 7am.  It was amazing.  My breasts were dreadfully engorged, hard and lumpy (Concrete Breasts, as I call them), but goodness I was thrilled.  Unfortunately, the event has not been repeated, however I am quietly confident - she did that all on her own, so I believe she will do it again once she's ready.  For now, I am making sure I relax and just enjoy the middle-of-the-night feeds.  This stage will pass, and I know that I will miss the time alone, in the darkness, just Tabitha and I, with her sleepy hand patting at my bare skin.

In other, more worrying news, Tabby can now climb up onto the sofa by herself.  She has also been able to climb stairs - quite rapidly - for a couple of months.  This is terribly cute, but alarming, because she can not yet safely get down.  So we have to watch her like hawks.  

In cuter news, Tabby loves to dance and bounce away whenever music is on.  Some of her toys play jaunty tunes, and whenever they come on, she grins and bounces her whole body up and down, poking her little bottom out.  Her favourite song is currently 'If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands'.  We sing this together, and clap our hands at the appropriate times.

Finally, two and a half molars are in.  Jeepers creepers, these have been nasty.  We didn't really have problems with her previous eight teeth, but the molars have caused her some grief.  She has been thoroughly cranky.  I will be pleased when they are all in!

Here is a picture of Tabitha rooting through my wool cupboard.  Her and the younger cat, Possum, like to do this together.  Between the two of them, they can make quite a mess in an alarmingly short amount of time:

The First Birthday Party!

What a fantastic day!  Tabitha's first birthday party (held at my parents' house) was loads of fun - she had an absolute ball, playing with her little friends and happily being cuddled and carried around by lots of her 'big friends'.  She even managed to keep her dress and white tights clean, and her little pearl bracelet avoided breakage.  I was terribly proud of her!  Here she is playing with one of her current favourite toys - a Cozy Coupe car on loan from the Toy Library:

Tabby wore white woolen tights, little white patent leather shoes (with bows), a pale pink knit dress, with pleated skirt and a bow at the waist, and a little pink and taupe fluffy tulle hair clip, all from Seed.  She also wore a little pearl bracelet, a gift for her from The Daddy and I.

In the days leading up, I kept saying, "You are having a balloon party!".  "These are plates for your balloon party!"...  "You will have such fun at your balloon party!"  So I thought I ought to produce a decent number of balloons.  We got 300 - it is a surprisingly modest number in an average living room.  The balloons were a great hit with the babies - when held in someone's arms, a baby can easily pluck balloons down from the ceiling and cling to them.  Most of the babies took some balloons home.

After a hectic few days preparing, baking, cleaning and picking things up (glassware, loan toys, helium etc), once the party started, I enjoyed forgetting it all and enjoying some Champagne, catching up with friends, and showing off my beautiful baby.

The food went well - most got eaten, though we had enough leftovers to enjoy spending the evening picking at bagels and cake, with half a dozen of our friends who stuck around until Tabby's bedtime.

Some baby cupcakes - I like a pale green icing with coloured flowers, a little like grass or leaves:

We had egg sandwiches, and also chicken and chive sandwiches.  Rye bread, just for a change:

Mini bagels (from Aviv, natch) with smoked salmon, cream cheese and chives:

Chocolate crackles with little pink dragees - carrying on the dot theme from the wrappers:

Honey joys, which are always a favourite:

Little cupcake toppers which matched the invitations - we dipped the buttercream frosting in some shredded white coconut.  This is an easy 'cheat' if you'd rather not bother with piping neat buttercream swirls.

Fairy bread - because, apparently, one cannot have a first birthday party without it:

The birthday cake was a bit of a wild card - I'd vaguely planned on doing a three-layered chocolate cake with pale pink boiled fluffy frosting, however when I made the frosting (less than an hour before the guests arrived!), I discovered that the quantity I needed would not fit in the Kitchenaid (I discovered this by splattering bits of egg white and boiling sugar syrup all over the place).  Thankfully, I'd set aside the ingredients to make a delicious rich chocolate frosting, just in case, so I managed to pull that together within 30 minutes, including frosting the cake!  I decided to use all FOUR cake layers, which I had baked the day prior, resulting in quite a tall, glossy, chocolate-tastic tower of cake.  I sort of tossed little handfuls of ivory and pink dragees at the frosted cake, and hoped for the best.   I think it looked okay!

Actually, I will certainly be doing this cake again, next time I need a birthday cake for a crowd.  Because the cake holds together well, and is layered, it really easily cuts into at least 48 or more neat, triangular slices - you simply slice 12 (or even 16 would be fine) tall regular slices, then divide each slice into its four layers - each little triangle then has some frosting on the outside, some on the top or bottom (from the layers) and the top pieces have lots of frosting!

Tabitha stared at her candle most intently, but did not, of course, understand that she was expected to blow it out:

So I did it for her, and everyone clapped - including the guest of honour.  She certainly knew that something exciting was happening, as she squealed and grinned and clapped and kicked her legs about:

I had feared that Tabby might be overwhelmed by all the guests at her party, and spend the afternoon clinging, koala-style, to The Daddy or myself.  However we were pleasantly surprised - she happily flitted from person to person, lavishing all of the guests with Tabby Love.  I did, of course, still manage to sneak in plenty of Mum-Mum cuddles:

Having snuggles with Godmother Sophie:

And Godfather Noah:

With 'Auntie' Amy, my best friend:

A few of her favourite things:

Pointing at things she likes or wants...

Playing with phones - and talking into them 'YAYAYAYAYAYA!!!'...

Showing off her pretty pearl bracelet, a gift from myself and The Daddy...

Cuddles with her grandfather, a.k.a. 'Gra' (my father).  He is the only person, apart from The Daddy and myself, who she reaches for when she is feeling clingy:

If you click on this photo, you will see the most hilarious face.  She is telling her friend Millie a story, and is obviously right in the middle of the important part:

Tabitha has had quite a fancy for her little friend Joseph since they were wee babies - she used to hold his hand every time she had the chance.  Yesterday, she spent quite a bit of time pushing him around the living room in the little car.  He seemed happy enough!

More 'pointing'.  She kept pointing at a balloon she wanted, across the room, and we had to work out which exact balloon she was pointing at, out of a couple of hundred!

At the end of the party, she spent some time playing in the little plastic garden, eating a sausage roll.  This qualifies as an Excellent Time in baby land!

 

Her Godfather, Noah, played 'peekaboo' through the little letterbox in the plastic garden - Tabitha was absolutely delighted with this game:

After a while, the cheeky little girl reached through the letter box and grabbed his face!

Having some cuddles with my little sister, her Aunt Q.  Look at them, both with little flower clips:

After most of the guests had left, half a dozen or so of us stood around eating cake and sausage rolls and washing dishes - my gorgeous friends even helped with the vacuuming, putting away platters etc!  Of course, they were sent home with plenty of honey joys for their kindness...  

We also sat and let Tabitha open all of her beautiful gifts - she had a wonderful time, and reacted with joy and excitement to each new present.  I think that, by this point in the day (6:30pm) she was so completely wired, that she was about to boil over with excitement!

After the house was clean, the dishes were done and order was restored, we then gave her some dinner, and took her home to bed.  She was fast asleep in bed by 7:30pm, and I had time to sit in bed with some tea, writing thank you notes.  It was a tiring day, but a wonderful one!